1135 Moses Maimonides, medieval Jewish scholar, was born in Cordova, Spain (d. 13 December 1204).

1763 John Daniel Kurtz, chairman of the organizational meeting of the Lutheran General Synod, was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania (d. 30 June 1856).

1799 Friedrich Aug. G. Tholuck, German Lutheran theologian, professor and author, was born at Breslau (d. 10 June 1877).

1820 A group of Protestant missionaries from New England first arrived on the Sandwich Islands, now known as the Hawaiian Islands. They were welcomed by King Kamehameha II.

1858 Johannes E. Goßner, founder of mission society that bore his name, died (b. 14 December 1773). [German Wikipedia article]

1870 Carl Frederick Brommer, president of the Nebraska and Southern Nebraska Districts of the LCMS, was born in Wuerttemberg, Germany (d. 18 October 1949).

1894 Roland Bainton, American church historian, was born at Ilkestaon, Derbyshire, England (d. 13 February 1984).

1903 Joy Ridderhof, American missionary to Honduras and founder of Gospel Recordings, was born (d. 19 December 1984).

1911 Sven Oftedal, New Testament professor at Augsburg Theological Seminary, died (b. 22 March 1844).

1938 Charles Michael Jacobs, professor at the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Mount Airy (Philadelphia), Pennsylvania, died (b. 5 December 1875).

1947 The first Missouri Synod confirmation in the Philippines took place at Bethel Lutheran Church, Manila.

1969 Otto H. Hoyer died at Plainview, Nebraska (b. 4 September 1890, Hanover, Kansas). He graduated from Concordia Seminary (Saint Louis) in 1914 and served parishes in Kansas, Colorado and Oklahoma. He served the Colorado District as secretary (1921–1926) and as circuit counselor (1924–1926).  He then served the Oklahoma District as secretary (1930–1943), vice-president (1942–1943) and president (1943–1954).

1972 Martin Justus Naumann, Missouri Synod theologian, died (b. 30 August 1901).

1982 Andrew Schulze, a pioneer in race relations in the Missouri Synod, died at El Cerrito, California (b. 8 March 1896, Cincinnati, Ohio). Schulze served for thirty years as pastor of congregations in Springfield, Illinois; Saint Louis; and Chicago before becoming the first executive director of the Lutheran Human Relations Association of America, then located in Valparaiso, Indiana. He authored two books dealing with race relations in the church and a third book on the history of race relations in the Missouri Synod. He was a 1924 graduate of Concordia Theological Seminary in Springfield and chaired the General Conference of Churches in Negro Communities from 1930 to 1946 before most African American congregations became full-fledged members of the synod.

1984 Karl Rahner, German theologian and one of the most influential Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century, died (b. 5 March 1904).